Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In Mira Shaib’s Beirut-set drama, Arzé, the narrative framework that is imitated is that of Bicycle Thieves, a pantheonic piece of Italian neorealism. Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 classic follows a father and his son searching for a stolen bike, a symbol of means …
This is a spoiler free review of the first four episodes of House of the Dragon Season 2. The legacy of Game of Thrones was fascinating to watch unfold. What once started as an arguably revolutionary piece of television ended on a sour note. That note involved the series ending …
At the 2023 AFI Film Festival, I saw Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders and fell in love with it. After the festival, Searchlight sold the film to Focus Features, and it is in theaters as of June 21st. Heading into the movie a second time, I wondered if it would ignite …
Do you remember about the friendships you had when you were young? Most of us don’t. But there’s one person that we all remember or even have with us since the day we got to know about the idea of a friendship. Although we tend to meet new people as …
Musicians have a long history of migrating from recording albums to acting in pictures. We could appoint Cher in Moonstruck (1987), which gave her an Academy Award, Barbra Streisand with Funny Girl (1968), which also gave her the Academy Award, and Eminem with 8 Mile (2003). It is a media …
In the 20th century, Dr. Erich Lindemann changed the medical understanding of loss through his Grief Work theory. In this theory, he stated that the way of overcoming the death of a loved one and regaining oneself is the emancipation from the bondage of the deceased, readjustment of the environment …
With Twisters around the corner, what better time to revisit the 1996 original? Twister feels like an ancient relic in the modern day of cinema. The ’90s were stormed with disaster movies of all types, and sometimes, they had competing films releasing at once—for example, Deep Impact and Armageddon or …
No filmmaker is more unconcerned about the audience than Quentin Dupieux. His previous movie, Yannick, was an hour-long dark comedy that tiptoed around in circles as its titular character (played with pitch-perfect timing by Raphaël Quenard) turns a grating complaint about the play he’s watching into a total nightmare for …
Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is the latest project from the versatile filmmaker. It’s hard to keep track of what projects Guy Ritchie is currently working on, as one gets seemingly announced every week. And while most on Film Twitter spheres have complained about Ritchie pumping out two …
Grief is not a finite resource. It is used in abundance as a base for art as it is an emotion that is universally felt and resonates with the populous. It affects even the hardest of souls. The grief that is usually picked apart by art is often reserved for …
An ode to family, loss, and the beauty of stories, director and writer Patrick Dickinson’s Cottontail is a quiet meditation on what it means to be part of the world after someone you love has died. Dickinson’s narrative feature debut, the film follows Kenzaburo, played by Lily Franky, a sixty-something …
Horror is one of the most difficult genres to tap into. It’s really challenging to keep viewers at the edge of their seats with genuinely scary elements. However, every once in a while, we get to see a movie that truly captures the essence of the genre and takes us …
Wide shots of roads with purplish skies over them. We see that mainly during the sunsets, as Nesa Azimi’s cameras portray. She takes us on a journey throughout the United States railroads and gas stations alongside the female truckers in business. In the first minute of DRIVER, the director introduces …
Meeting with Pol Pot is very loosely based on a memoir by an American journalist named Elizabeth Becker, who was at its first screening at the Cannes Film Festival. It must have been a very strange feeling to see a fictionalized version of some of the most important events in …
Roberto Minervini shared the best director prize in the Un Certain Regard strand of this year’s Cannes Film Festival for this mumblecore-style film about soldiers in the Wild West during the American Civil War. It’s the flipside to Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga (reviewed separately), which has broadly the …
There was one movie at this year’s Cannes Film Festival which was a passion project for the director that got all the attention: Megalopolis. But there was another movie, a passion project for the director, that also played Cannes, albeit not in competition: Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1. This …
2022’s Venice Film Festival opened with the Noah Baumbach directed White Noise, a quirky and chaotic genre-mash up. It is a visually enrapturing film about a family surviving a toxic event while grappling with the feeling of impending doom and the mundane cataclysm of their lives. Adapted from Don DeLillo’s …
Alexandre Dumas’ novel The Count of Monte Cristo is kind of the ur-text for the modern adventure story. Published in 1844, it has it all: treachery, sword-fighting, injustice, long cons, false identities requiring elaborate disguises, secret children, hidden treasure, beautiful ladies, villains becoming heroes, heroes becoming villains, and revenge served …
Limited series are becoming a new favorite medium for streaming. They last between six and eight hours and feel like an extended film. Such length allows the story to carry a deep emotional complexity. This complexity has attracted prominent actors to this limited series format. Netflix has championed this medium …
A little over one year ago, Ted Lasso aired its finale. Despite being off the air for an entire year, it has never dipped out of the top five of Apple TV+’s most-watched shows. While plenty of shows gain a new life when they are released in a new format (think Suits …